


The Face of the Enemy

by wingthing



Series: The EQ Alternaverse [38]
Category: Elfquest
Genre: EQ Alternaverse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:56:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingthing/pseuds/wingthing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will Melati grow up to become the greatest healer on the World of Two Moons... or a second Winnowill?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

Melati sat on the Bridge of Memory, overlooking the great stronghold the elves called Oasis. Seen from a thousand feet above the city looked like a giant stone honeycomb, with rough hexagons of flat ground set between defensive walls and spire-shaped towers. Once a simple refuge for some forty-odd elves, Oasis had grown along with its population. Recognitions and migrations had brought the nation’s number to nearly five hundred elves – many the survivors of the original Flight from Sorrows and their descendants, others the children of the scattered elfin nations. In the central flats the Sun Folk kept their gardens, as they had for untold millennia. Beyond the rows of crops stood the dairy and the pens of zwoot mares waiting to be milked. To the east were the hunting grounds of the Pride, the elite riders of the fierce tuftcats that brought in fresh meat and guarded their borders. To the west the Jackwolf Riders maintained a strange community they called a Holt. To Melati they seemed a relic of an earlier time, something to be studied from a safe distance. 

Melati’s own sire had been a Jackwolf Rider once, they told her. She found it hard to believe. The Riders were hunters who gloried in the bloodsong, the heady dance of life and death. Her sire had a special terror for spilled blood. He always had done, even before Melati’s birth. 

She preferred to look to the center of the honeycomb, to Tallest Spire, the heart of their beehive. That was her home, not the caves or the adobe huts. The artisans and the Gliders inhabited the smaller towers of stone, but the Spire was reserved for the elders and lorekeepers of their nation. Their lord lived in the highest chambers, just beneath the summit, and it was there she had grown up. It was there she could find her true parents, always ready to greet her with a kind word and a gentle touch. Her own blood might have abandoned her, but Lord Haken and his lady had welcomed her into their family with open arms. 

Yet now her sire had decided to return to Oasis. Why? To make amends for his betrayal? To curse her very existence to her face, lest she forget just how unwanted she was? To take stock of her growth and issue judgment? That prospect disturbed her the most. She was used to studying others, not being studied herself. 

“Melati…!” 

With a barely suppressed sigh, she turned her head. The silver-haired youth had climbed up to join her on the bridge. “I was wondering what was keeping my shadow,” she said tartly. 

Puffing for breath, Yosha threw himself down and fumbled for the waterskin slung over his shoulder. “What – what are you doing up here?” 

“Waiting. Watching the sun. It’s almost time.” 

“Don’t you want to be down there? Meet it when it arrives?” 

“Why? So I can go running into his arms? ‘Oh Papa, Papa, I missed you so much!’ He’s not Cricket.” 

The youth flushed at the mention of his own sire. He was well aware Melati had always viewed their emotional reunions with thinly-veiled contempt. Melati took care to let him know whenever she disapproved. It simplified their relationship immensely. 

“I know he’s not,” Yosha muttered. “But you must be curious about him. You’re always curious about everything!” 

“I am. Intensely. Why is he coming back now? What has Grandmother been saying about me? My lord wouldn’t so much as tell him if I was alive or dead, but I know she sends to him all the time.” 

“Maybe she’s been telling him it’s time to come home to you.” 

Melati glared at him from behind her curtain of hair. He could really be quite insufferable at times, her soul’s brother. She put it down to his blood and the circumstances of his birth. The elves called his kind tyleets – healer’s gifts. Born of a pseudo-Recognition forced by healers, they invariably turned out as chipper optimistics. So many good wishes went into making them, went the saying, that they could not help but be filled with cheer. 

At least Lady Spar had a self-serving streak that Melati respected. Yosha would bend over backwards to accommodate another’s desires. But then his own father had offered to attempt Recognition with a casual lovemate, simply because he knew of her intense longing for a child. Sharing his very soul with her – handing over such power – hadn’t troubled him in the least, and he had taught his son to be just as careless with his affections. 

Not that she wasn’t often appreciative of Yosha’s hovering presence. As much as she enjoyed her studious life in Tallest Spire, she was glad for the company of an agemate. And he was one of the very few, besides her adoptive parents, who had always loved her without reservation. Not once had she caught him looking at her with eyes clouded by suspicion or fear. Never had she tasted the acrid flavor of pity in his sendings. She was grateful for that. 

Sometimes she wished she could love him better. But then he was always content with so little. 

She felt a sudden vibration in the air. “It’s here,” she whispered, a moment before a blinding flash lit up the largest hexagonal field below. 

“Well, let’s get this over with.” 

* * * 

The Palace of the High Ones appeared in Oasis at its appointed time. A few Sun Folk looked up from their work in the gardens with vague interest, but most did not pay the giant crystal structure a second glance. After six thousand years of faithful transit between the many nations of the World of Two Moons, it was as a familiar a sight as the rising sun. 

There were three elves who waited eagerly on the edge of the landing field. The Palace visited Oasis once every moon-dance, bearing travellers and trade goods. But this day it held one whose return had been long awaited. 

“My son – my eyes see with joy!” Leetah the Healer cried. 

Pool strode out onto the sandy plain, a gentle smile on his tanned face. Leetah raced up to embrace him. “My hands touch with joy – oh, what’s this?” She fingered his pointed chin-beard. 

“We’re all getting older, Mother.” 

She held him back at arm’s length, her keen healer’s eye taking in the fine laugh-lines beginning to form at the corners of his eyes. “Oh, Pool, you must do something about that,” she chided gently. 

“Not again,” he warned. At over five thousand, he was already the oldest wolf-blooded elf living. His sire Scouter had lived some four millennia before he had given up his withered and broken body. Leetah had reluctantly come to accept her lifemate’s choice to live and die as a pure-blooded Wolfrider, but she never gave up hoping that Pool’s much thinner wolf-blood would leave him more inclined to choose immortality. 

Behind them, the Palace disappeared with a faintly audible pop. 

“Always in such a hurry,” sighed Maleen, the tuftcat rider. 

Pool shrugged. “You know Rayek doesn’t like to tarry. No one is planning to leave Oasis this month, and the Palace has four more stops to make before it returns to the Great Holt.” 

Leetah shook her head. “And Rayek cannot bear to play – what do the Islanders call those little boats again? The ones between villages?” 

“Ferries.” 

“He cannot bear to play ferry-lad for a moment longer than he must. You would think he would not begrudge serving our kind one day a month.” 

“He serves, Mother. In other ways.” 

“Well, enough of Rayek,” Leetah said. “Tell me you have returned for good!” 

“We have much to discuss, Mother. Soon enough.” He turned to the third elf. “Cholla,” he said, and his apprehension was evident in his voice. He and Ekuar’s white-haired daughter had been first mortal enemies and then fast friends as children, and while the centuries had done much to deepen their bond, the tragedies of the last few years now threatened to tear it apart. 

“My hands touch with joy,” Cholla said with a hug, then dealt him a friendly punch to the arm, just hard enough to sting. Pool winced, and Cholla shook her head. “Oh, don’t flinch!” she warned, and gave him another punch, a little harder. So she hadn’t forgiven him for running away after all. He didn’t blame her for that. He doubted he would ever forgive himself. 

“How have you fared?” he asked. 

“Well enough. I’m always busy. We had a fire in the kilnworks last year, as your mother probably told you, and it’s been a nuisance getting everything up and running again.” 

She would make him spell it out; so be it. “And your heart?” he specified. 

“Oh Pool, you’re the only one who still fusses about that. Well, you and my brother. I would think after all this time you could trust that I have it under control.” She looped her arm through his and led him through the fields towards Tallest Spire. 

**Are you ready?** she locksent. **Truly ready? I swear, if you open this wound and then run away again….** 

**I’m ready,** Pool insisted. **Is she…?** 

Cholla pointed to a tiny red figure descending the sheer rock wall. Pool squinted and raised a hand to shade his eyes. Moment by moment, the figure grew larger in his sight; at length he made out a long fall of auburn hair, slim legs bared by the slits of a red silk dress, and nimble sandaled feet that leapt down from rock to rock, scarcely seeming to touch them. 

“Is she… an airwalker?” 

“Airwalker, healer, rockshaper… Haken hopes to teach her firestarting next.” At Pool’s incredulous stare, she shrugged. “You know our lord. ‘Magic is the birthright of all our kind.’ He means to prove that everyone can learn the skills, if they only apply themselves. And Melati has a remarkable aptitude.” 

“Is that Yosha?” Maleen asked, and Pool looked again. Another elf, silver-haired and hesitant on the rocks, clambered down slowly behind Melati. It had to be Maleen’s boy; the only other silver-haired elves in Oasis were descendants of Door, and all Gliders from the cradle. 

“How many times have I told that boy….” Maleen grumbled. 

“High Ones,” Pool breathed as Melati touched down on the golden sands. “How old is she now? Eight-and-five?” 

“Eight-and-six,” Cholla said. 

“So long… so many lost years.” 

“They weren’t lost for her,” Cholla said, a little sharply. “She has been well cared for.” 

“I owe you all a great debt.” 

“I hope you aren’t expecting a warm welcome. She has not been pining for you.” 

“I can only ask for forgiveness.” 

“I doubt you’ll have that either. Melati!” Cholla made her voice light and welcoming. She waved the young elf-maiden over. “Come greet your sire.” 

Slowly Melati advanced, nervous as a cat. Pool was struck at how much she had grown. When he had last seen her she had been a chubby little child, her features still soft and unformed. Now she was a lithe adolescent, poised on the very cusp of maturity. Her dark red hair hung down her back, straight as a waterfall. He studied her face intently, looking for some trace of his lost lifemate in her features. She stared back at him, eyes narrowed to turquoise slits. He wondered if she in turn was searching for evidence of herself in his face. 

“You… you look so much like your grandmother,” he said at length, trying his best to conceal his disappointment. 

Melati nodded. “They call me her ‘little mirror.’” 

“Who calls you that?” 

“Many elves. Jarrah. Thamia. Mirith. Others. I don’t know who else.” 

Her face, framed by the rain-straight locks, was indeed the very image of Leetah’s; she had the same high cheekbones, the same steeply arching eyebrows, the same uptipped nose and pointed chin. Even their bearing was similar – the lift of the head, the seemingly unconscious hauteur. 

But of Ruffel, he could see nothing, save for the blue in her eyes. 

“Well, no matter,” Pool said gamely. “You’re growing into a beauty. I imagine you have all the lads chasing after you.” 

She blinked at him skeptically. “I don’t want to be chased. I’m no one’s prey.” 

“No, of course not. But... every maiden likes a little attention, now and then.” 

He felt Cholla flinch at his side. She released his arm and gave him a little nudge towards his daughter. “Why don’t you two walk together? Oasis has changed much in the last few years. Melati, show your father around.” **And Pool, you rock-skull, shut up about the lads before I box your ears!** 

Pool held out his hand to Melati. She stared at it a moment, as if contemplating a pricker bush, then looked away. “I will show you to your chambers. Grandmother has had them kept the way you left them.” 

“My thanks.” 

They walked in silence towards Tallest Spire. Pool paced at her side, stealing glances at this stranger he had sired. She seemed determined not to look in his direction. 

“Do you live in the Spire?” he asked her. 

“Yes. On the eighth level.” 

“Haken’s chambers – of course. I had forgotten.” 

“Why would you remember? I was still living with Maleen when you last visited.” 

“Your grandmother told me. In sendings.” 

“Mm.” 

They passed under the arching doorway of the Spire’s main gates. A trio of Sun Folk saw them coming and quickly reversed course. Melati led Pool along the once-familiar hallways towards the healers’ chambers. He noted the many subtle changes: new glowstone mosaics adorning the curving walls, different carpets laid on the smooth stone floors. Oasis was always in a state of change, like some great insect in perpetual metamorphosis. 

“I spent several years in the Great Holt,” he said to fill the silence. “It’s like an Oasis in the trees. Things are constantly shifting there, but not by any elfin hand. No one treeshapes – at least, not like Spar and Meerkat do. It’s considered insulting to the Grandfather Tree. If you want a new house, you simply make a framework of dead branches and prop it up in the trees. The tree will grow around the frame, make it part of itself. It’s fascinating. It feels so… so right, elf and tree living his such harmony.” 

“I hear it’s very wet in the Great Holt.” 

“Oh, aye. During the storm season it will rain for days on end, and the whole forest floor floods when the Green River overruns its banks.” 

Melati made a sound of distaste. 

“Maybe you would like to come with me and see it,” Pool offered. “We have cousins we can visit with.” 

“I don’t think so.” 

“It would do you good to see some more of the world.” 

“I don’t need to. I can see all I want through the Little Palace.” 

“It’s not the same, child.” 

“Don’t call me that.” 

Pool fell silent as Melati turned down a hallway and opened a door. 

Melati had not lied; Leetah had kept his old rooms just as he had left them. The same faded tapestries hung on the walls; the same bowls sat on the sideboard ready to be filled with fruit. The mosaic Ruffel had begun on the wall remained unfinished. As he studied where the plaster had dried around the colored pebbles, he could just make out the ghost of her fingerprints. 

He walked over to the sunken chamber where their bed had once rested. Someone had disposed of all the stained linens, the mattress stuffed with zwoot hair. Pool ran his fingertips over the enameled edge of the pit-bed. “This is where you were born,” he said to Melati. His fingertip brushed a discoloration on the enamel that might well have been blood. “And where your mother died.” 

He regretted his words as soon as he’d said them. The child did not need reminding. 

“Many animals die after giving birth,” Melati remarked, her voice distant, impassive. “Fish when they spawn, spiders once they lay their egg sacks. Several kinds of desert lizard will guard their nests and starve to death, waiting for their young to hatch. If scavengers do not consume the mother’s body, the hatchlings do. It is quite… efficient in its way.” 

“Oh, daughter…” Pool said despairingly. “Is that what Haken’s been teaching you?” 

Melati bristled. “I could not ask for a better father than he has been.” 

“You choose that word to wound me.” 

“No I don’t. It is the only word that applies.” A ghost of a cruel smile touched her lips. “Wounding you is… incidental.” 

“You’re angry with me. You have every right to be. I was not ready to be a father to you. When I Recognized your mother, I could think only of the joys of fatherhood. I was not prepared for sorrow. When your mother died… something in me broke. Something I could not heal. I tried. I wanted to love you, for her sake. But I could not, and so I left you with those who could. 

“But now?” she asked. “At last you are ready to love me?” 

He flinched at her tone. Haken had indeed taught her well. 

He gestured her to sit with him on a bench. She positioned herself gingerly on the very edge, poised for flight. 

“My sire and I didn’t always get along,” he said. “In truth we fought like jackwolves and tuftcats. 

Melati frowned. “The wolves and the cats don’t fight. They don’t even cross paths most of the time.” 

“Well, they used to. In the early days of Oasis, when I was growing up, we were all living on top of each other. And my father and I were like those beasts – two very different animals forced to live together. I always had his love. But once I came into my healing powers and abandoned the hunt, I seldom had his approval, and it pained me greatly. His love was not enough to feed my soul. I wanted his praise too. But you… to hear my mother tell it, you can do no wrong in Haken’s eyes. And I am glad for it. I know you have no need of love from a near-stranger. But it would please me if you would accept it, all the same.” 

“And why should I? After all these years?” 

“Because… even if you cannot feel love for your sire… perhaps you could feel pity. Please, daughter. I look into your eyes and I try to see Ruffel. I hear your voice and I think of hers. You are all that remains of her.” 

“That’s not true,” Melati said lightly. “Her bones are buried in the south fields. I can show you where.” 

He stared at her, wounded and dumbstruck. And that was how she left him. The little rattles on her sandals hissed like snakes as she withdrew. 

* * * 

He would not go to his mother yet. He could not face her smothering affection and her maternal disappointment. But he sent to Cholla, seeking company. Presently she arrived at his door bearing a long wicker cylinder. “I brought you some supper, since I knew you wouldn’t have restocked your larder yet.” 

“Oh, I didn’t mean for you to trouble yourself–” 

“No trouble. Klipspringer’s gone to visit Skylark at Blue Mountain, but I’m so used to cooking for two.” She set the wicker basket down on the low table and began to remove the small ceramic pots stacked within. “I’m surprised you aren’t eating with Leetah tonight.” 

“Not now. I need to build up my courage.” 

“Ah.” Cholla nodded sagely. “Well, this will help.” She spread out the pots, lifting the lids to reveal freshly baked flatbread, spiced pottage, grilled locusts and sliced rockpeppers. Pool’s spirits began to lift at the aromas. 

“It didn’t go well,” Cholla remarked as Pool sat down and helped himself to a piece of flatbread. 

“No.” 

“I warned you.” 

“I know you did.” He took several spoonfuls of pottage and a few of the bright red peppers, but passed over the locusts. Cholla clucked her tongue and murmured, “I forgot.” 

“How did you do that?” Pool raised an eyebrow. It had been a mountain’s age since he had given up eating meat, but the Sun Folk still remembered the screaming matches it had provoked between father and son. Pool had practically lived at Cholla’s hut until Leetah had brokered a shaky truce. 

“Well, it has been years since we saw each other,” Cholla pointed out. “And besides, hoppers are hardly meat. There are some Sun Folk who still can’t bring themselves to eat ravvit or zwoot – but they won’t turn down a honey-coated sting-tail.” She took a fat locust and crunched it between her teeth. 

Pool made a face. 

“How did you survive in the Great Holt? I thought they have nothing to eat there but fish and waterfowl and treewees.” 

“I managed. I stayed in the Palace, mostly.” 

“With Ruffel.” 

He nodded. “Though she is not as… present as I had hoped.” 

“No?” 

“Not all spirits talk. Some you can only feel. I would send out my feelings and Ruffel’s would embrace me in turn… but it’s not the same. Not at all. After a while I couldn’t bear it… being so close yet so far. So I went to see Aurek in the Painted Mountains. I found… some measure of peace there.” 

“That’s right, he’s moved west, hasn’t he? Rayek was telling me. Some new project with his Eggs?” 

**He wants to found a school,** Pool sent, in consideration of his mouth full of food. He swallowed and went on, “A school for magic-users. Where any elf can learn their chosen discipline. He wants Lord Haken’s help to build it.” 

“What sort of help?” 

“Haken’s daughter once tried to use the powers of the ancient Gliders to build an Egg of Eight Spheres – a vessel of living stone, like the Palace. Her experiment failed, but only because she was stopped by Swift and the Wolfriders before she could complete it. Aurek hopes to recreate the experiment.” 

A veil seemed to fall over Cholla’s eyes. “So that’s why you’ve come back. To ask Haken for rockshapers.” 

“And to see Melati,” Pool insisted. “But she seems to have no use for me.” 

“She’s hurt. She’s angry, and she’s at the age when passions burn brightest. You must be patient. I warned you, Pool. You can’t just give up because you find it difficult.” 

“I know that! I just… I just hoped for a chance to explain. I thought… if I could share with her – if she understood what it did to me.” 

“Share?” Cholla’s hand hesitated over the rockpeppers. “You mean… locksending?” 

“No elf should ever have to feel what I felt. And yet I cannot explain it in words. What the birth did to me. Why it broke me. Maybe, if she could see through my eyes, and if she let me see through hers, we could come to some sort of… truce.” 

Cholla shook her head. “That takes trust. And she has no reason to trust you yet.” She pushed the pot of peppers away and said, “Pool, what happened at the birth that… broke you, as you say? Maleen’s told me… but I still don’t understand. It was a great sorrow for all of us, but that sorrow was tempered by Melati’s arrival.” 

“Not for me. For me, it was sorrow compounded with…” he grimaced as he forced himself to say the word, “… hate.” 

“Show me,” Cholla insisted. “Help me understand.” 

Pool hesitated. Cholla was his oldest friend and his harshest critic. If he could not share the truth with her, how could he ever hope to with his daughter? Reluctantly, he reached out with a sending star, seeking her own, binding them together until she shared his thoughts, until she was walking in the shadows of memory with him. 

* * * 

Recognition – the great mystery, at last revealed…. 

His whole life, he had waited for it. His mother had always said true Recognition could never be chosen – that to try to force it would only weaken its bond. Yet Maleen had so wanted a child, and Cricket had been willing to father it. To Pool, who spent his days preserving life – fighting that great Enemy called death – it struck him as a chance to practice the purest healer’s art: to create life where there had been none. 

It hadn’t been easy – how could he force something he did not understand? He labored for months, until at last, eyes met eyes under the aura he cast. He staggered from the hut, exhausted yet consumed by the bloodsong… and saw Ruffel hovering outside, anxious for news. Eyes met eyes twice that night. 

He had known Ruffel all his life, yet now it seemed she had been a stranger to him all those years. Now he saw her for who she truly was. All this time, she had been meant for him. 

“Maleen has been my other half for so many years,” she warned him. “I meant to raise her child with her.” 

“And now you will have a child of your own to raise.” 

“Maleen mustn’t be left out….” 

“She won’t be. I’ll cherish her first for herself, and more because of you. And we will raise both children together – the three of us!” 

For two years he had lived in a dream of blissful anticipation. Each day for two years, his love for Ruffel grew stronger, until it became a dizziness, like the finest dreamberry wine. He was drunk with joy. 

Maleen birthed her child three days before Ruffel. A boy, with his mother’s brown skin and his father’s silver hair. They named him Yosha, and Maleen swore he would be there to see his soul’s sister born. As Ruffel felt her pangs begin, she and Maleen laughed together, imagining that their children would be the next ones to Recognize. 

When all was well, their kind felt only satisfaction in the work of bringing life. So it was with Ruffel. She chatted with Maleen between contractions, and sipped squatneedle juice, and swatted Pool’s hands away when he sought to relieve the birthing pangs. “Great Sun, let me do my work, lifemate!” she chided gently. 

At last it was time. He felt it in the change of her breathing, in the way she braced her legs on the edge of the bed-pit. “The child is ready!” he cried. “Ready to come forth into the world.” He looked up into Ruffel’s eyes, expecting to see them shine with the same excitement. But instead a strange half-frown crossed her face. 

“Oh!” she exclaimed, in a voice no louder than a bird’s peep. She sounded more surprised than anything. 

The blood…. 

He was used to the smells of birth. He had helped deliver enough kitlings, Maleen’s most recently. He was used to a little blood, sometimes more than a little if the afterbirth was slow in coming. But this was something else. The blood was everywhere: on her legs, on his hands, on the cushions and birthing cloths. This was a slaughter. 

He was a child, weeping at the sight of a butchered zwoot. 

He was a terrified youth, watching a crescent-horn die, feeling the animal’s pain for the first time with his newfound healer’s senses, hearing the creature scream in agony. 

It was Maleen screaming, followed quickly by her infant son. Ruffel could only ask “Is it all right?” her voice already fading as her life’s blood poured out of her. 

Death was in the room. Pool could feel the Enemy stalking him. 

He roused himself from his panic. He laid hands on her belly, feeling for the womb, feeling for the child. He reached out with a sending star to probe for the damage and felt it brushed aside. 

The child…. 

The afterbirth was torn, hemorrhaging. He had to shrivel it, to cut off its blood supply. But he couldn’t while the babe was still inside its mother. 

He had only an instant to make his choice. 

“Forgive me!” Pool cried, as he reached inside his lifemate. His fingers closed over a head, and again he felt the unborn’s sending star, trying to swat him away. It burned in his mind like a bee’s sting, but he pushed onward, hooking his fingers around a shoulder. 

Ruffel screamed as he began to draw the child out. The head was born, covered in a bloody caul. Pool had no time for gentleness. He forced his hands around the crowning infant and turned it roughly, until its shoulders were freed with an audible crack. The child slithered out in a torrent of fresh blood, and Pool let it fall to the cushion as he turned his attention back to his lifemate. 

**Mother!** Pool sent. **Come now! I need your help!** 

He sealed off the blood vessels that were feeding the torn afterbirth. He poured his magic into her womb, forcing it to contract. Ruffel screamed again, then sagged back in Maleen’s arms. 

**Ruffel,** he begged. **Lifemate, stay with me.** 

She couldn’t leave him. She was all that mattered in the world. 

Her heart stopped. He felt the sudden stillness rock her body. He reached out with his magic and squeezed the muscle until it began to beat again. 

It beat pourly. It fluttered like Cholla’s used to, when she was having a “stampede.” 

It stopped again. 

Again he restarted it. Again it failed. Leetah was at his side now. He had no idea when she had arrived. **Mother, she’s fading. You have to help me.** 

“Oh, my son….” 

**It’s her heart, you have to get it beating right. Like you always did with Cholla.** 

**Pool.** 

**Why aren’t you helping her? Just do what you did with Cholla. We have to get her heart beating!** He placed both hands over her breastbone, focussing his magic into her. He pumped down with his hands, harder each time, trying jostle her heart into action. 

“Stop, now,” Leetah said. “She’s gone.” 

“No! No, we can heal her! We just need her heart pumping.” 

**Pool, there is nothing for it to pump.** 

He heard the truth in her blunt sending. He looked down and saw the sea of red all around him. His mother was right. Healers could do much, but they could not replenish lost blood. Only time could do that, and Ruffel had none. 

He had lost her. The Enemy had taken the only soul he could not live without. 

Then he became aware of a movement on the bloody cushion. The child. It lived. He felt a curious disbelief that the infant could have survived all that had happened. He remembered how he had crushed its little bones in his haste to deliver it. 

He let his magic out, to probe the wounded newborn. His healing aura ran up against another. 

It was a girl, as Ruffel had predicted. And she was completely unharmed. The broken bones had already knit together. Instinctively, the baby’s magic had protected her. 

She had protected herself… but she had done nothing for Ruffel. 

Worse, she had rebuffed Pool’s attempts at a healing. 

He had always hated and feared the unseen Enemy. But now at last it had a face – a swollen, bloody newborn’s face. 

**Lifetaker!** he exploded. 

The baby started to cry, a thin, indignant howl. 

Leetah scooped up the child, wrapped her in a fresh cloth. “A daughter,” she whispered. “Ruffel gave you a daughter.” 

She gave me death! he wanted to scream. She gave me this curse! A healer who takes life! 

* * * 

Cholla broke off the communion abruptly. She sprang to her feet, shaking her head at the residual connection. “You can’t…. Pool! You can’t believe Melati’s to blame for all this!” 

“I don’t. Not anymore.” 

“But you do. I feel it. Your head knows better, but your heart… you regret saving her!” 

Pool struggled to stand. “I couldn’t save them both. If I had only forced Ruffel’s blood away from her torn womb, she would still live.” 

“But Melati would have died!” 

“We don’t know that. She had a healer’s power even then. She was strong enough to block my magic. You shared with me – you felt it! I was trying to heal Ruffel. And she stopped me.” 

“Because you would have killed her. It was instinct, nothing more.” 

“I know that now. But then – the blood, the pain – it was too much! Ruffel was my whole life. When she died, I lost the best part of myself.” 

“I know,” Cholla said softly. 

“You can’t know! Not until you know Recognition! It’s more than love. It’s like finding a piece of yourself you never knew was missing! You learn you were never complete until that moment. For two years I was complete. And now… now I will never know that peace again.” 

“You cannot share this with Melati!” Cholla insisted. “Promise me you’ll never lay that burden on her. To know her sire hated her for being born… better she think you were just too grief-stricken to look at her.” 

She tried to brush past him. He caught her shoulders. 

“Tell me you understand – at least a little,” he pleaded. 

“No. No, I can’t. I might have forgiven your madness had it lasted a day, a moon-dance, even a year. But fourteen years, Pool? While others were raising your child, you were wallowing in self-pity. I thought you had outgrown holding grudges – but you’ve let this fester at you! You’ve let this grief and this rage own you! And now you want to give it to Melati? Why? To punish her?” 

“She deserves to know. I – I cannot bear this alone anymore.” 

“Do you think you’re the first elf to know loss? Great Sun, think of your own mother!” 

“It’s not the same. She always knew Father would die.” 

“And Maleen? She’d been Ruffel’s lifemate far longer than you.” 

Pool waved away Maleen’s name dismissively. “They weren’t Recognized.” 

Cholla slapped him. 

“You haven’t grown up at all!” she snarled. Her face flushed as she fought for breath. With her blood racing in her veins, her heart struggled to keep up. Pool held out his hand in offer, but she spurned his healing magic. “Keep the food!” she snapped as she spun on her heel and stalked out of the room. 

* * * 

Pool paced impatiently outside the council chamber, deep inside Tallest Spire. He had asked for an audience at noon, but by the sundial in the antechamber, Haken had decided to keep him waiting. 

The antechamber was built like a giant chimney, its walls tapering upwards until they ended in an open smokehole nearly twenty elf-spans overhead. Curling glyphs decorated the walls; the elfin script invented by the Islanders and eventually adopted by all but the Wolfriders of the Evertree, who kept their own, far more complex writing system. 

Pool read the names carved into the walls: Savah, Dodia, Shushen, Yarol, Ilshen, Rosh, Kislek, Malkah, Ohler. The names of all the elves who had died to make Oasis what it was – the martyrs of the Flight from Sorrows, riders who had fallen in the hunt, explorers who had been lost to the ruthless rocks. Haken called them the Heroic Dead. 

Pool’s sire had not been listed among them, for all Leetah’s pleading. In Haken’s view there was nothing heroic about dying of old age. 

As Pool’s eyes passed over the most recent name chiseled into the clay, he recoiled. 

“Pool?” a voice prompted. Pool turned to face the blind elf waiting at the door. 

“Ruffel – why is her name here? She is not one of the Heroic Dead.” 

Sun-Toucher looked confused, as if Pool were speaking another tongue. “She fought off death long enough to bringing forth new life. There is nothing more heroic.” 

You’re wrong, Pool wanted to shout. There is nothing more shameful. My shame and Melati’s. Ruffel put her life in our hands, and together we killed her. 

“They will see you now,” Sun-Toucher said, reminding him of his task. 

He followed the blind seer into the council chamber. His sire, who could recall the days of Blue Mountain, had once sneered that Haken had simply rebuilt its throne room in Oasis on a much-smaller scale. Still, the room had always seemed massive to Pool. 

Haken and Chani sat on the two largest thrones, rockshaped to resemble giant birds with outstretched wings forming their backs. Pool dipped at the waist and spread his arms in the ceremonial bow of their people. 

To the right of the High Ones sat their great-grandson Door and his lifemate Spar, both arrayed in feathered robes that marked them as Oasis elders. Sun-Toucher took his seat in a more modest stone chair beside them. To Haken’s left sat Ahdri the Daughter of Memory, and Grayling, still wearing his chief’s lock though he had surrendered active control of the Jackwolf Riders to his son Fennec many years before. 

“Welcome home, healer,” Haken said. His measured tone gave away nothing. For all Pool could tell, the High One might be wishing him dead, or be overjoyed at his return. 

Probably not. Haken could be satisfied with much, but little genuinely pleased him. 

“Thank you, lord. It is… good to be back.” 

“Then have you come home to stay?” Chani asked, with a polite smile. 

“Not quite yet, I fear. I come on an errand from your grandson Aurek.” 

Chani brightened; her courteous smile filled with genuine warmth. “Aurek! What has that dear boy been dreaming up now?” 

Pool drew out a small piece of stone from the folds of his cloak. “In the western mountains of the New Land, he has found this stone. Seedrock, he calls it. It is the most magically-receptive stone he has encountered on this world – closest in character to the starstone of the Palace.” 

He shared a open sending with the council. In their combined vision, the golden walls of the chamber became an ever-shifting latticework of gray stone, with myriad symbols moving slowly across its rotating surface. 

**His new Egg,** Pool explained. **Eight spheres, each nested inside the other, forever in motion, drawing the power of magic-users to convert seedrock into a Scroll of living stone! Aurek tried to create such a thing once before, under the command of Winnowill. She meant to use it as a new palace-ship, to escape this world. But Aurek means to recreate it as a place of learning. He has completed seven spheres, merging his seedrock with precious shards of the Palace itself.** 

Haken scowled. **What are the Palacemasters thinking? The Homeshell is not a lode to be mined! They have already chipped off too many pieces. I saw the Palace yesterday – it looked… reduced.** 

**Skywise has created a smaller shell to explore the nearby stars,** Pool explained. **He does it quite often nowadays.** 

**And if he should crash it one day? That ‘starstone’ is all that remains of our homeworld! We cannot simply make more!** 

**That is another reason for the Egg,** Pool insisted. **Hear the truth, lord. From Aurek’s own memories. The seedrock of the first seven spheres is changing! Already it is beginning to take on the properties of the starstone. It is growing… breathing – alive!** 

**Fascinating,** Chani sent. **Then perhaps one day we can manufacture our own starstone. Imagine, a second Palace, one strong with this world’s own magic.** 

**This world has no magic,** Haken sent dismissively. **This world kills magic. That we have recovered even a fraction of the old powers is testament to elfin endurance – in spite of this cursed soil.** 

**Aurek believes there is power here,** Pool went on. **Soon he will begin the Egg’s final shell. And when it is complete, it will stand as a wellspring of our ancestral powers. All elves who wish to master magic can join Aurek in his... college.** The word was new to the elfin vocabulary, but his sending conveyed its meaning in a succinct word-thought-concept. 

“Wondrous…” Sun-Toucher breathed. 

“A worthy vision,” Haken said, when Pool had finished. “Though I won’t deny I am skeptical of his faith in this stone.” He held out his hand and Pool relinquished the pebble. “Mm, yes, I see. It is… malleable. But it will never be more than a frail imitation of true starstone.” 

“Surely once starstone was humble soil as well, my lord,” Chani said. “Give Aurek a High One’s lifetime and he may yet succeed. Especially if he draws on the powers of his new students.” 

“Very well. What does Aurek wish of us?” 

Now came the delicate moment. “The High One, Timmain… she has been helping him raise the spheres. But she is best suited to shaping flesh, not rock. Aurek requires the aid of another rockshaper to finish the last sphere. An elder among our kind.” 

“He wishes me to join him?” Haken hesitated. Pool could imagine the thoughts going through Haken’s head. The High One had never once set foot outside Oasis since his rockshapers had finished raising the walls. He brooded over his people like a nesting hawk. And to work with Aurek meant working with Timmain. The shaky truce between the two feuding High Ones had only held so long because an ocean separated them. If placed within reach of Timmain, who knew what might scores Haken might choose to settle. 

“I will go, Grandfather,” Door spoke up. “It has been too long since I’ve seen my uncle.” He turned to Spar. “You won’t mind, will you, my precious?” 

“Mind?” Spar gave a snort of incredulity. “Not as long as we stop at the Great Holt. I’ve been itching to see the old tribe again. Come to think of it, Yun still owes me some troll-gold.” 

Haken appeared visibly relieved that temptation was out of reach. “Then it’s settled. When will you leave?” 

“In a moon-dance, when the Palace returns,” Pool ruled. “We will disembark at the Great Holt for a spell, then journey onward to the Egg. The final shell should take no more than a year, Aurek says.” Pool hesitated, wondering how to approach the next matter. “It… is my wish that Melati come with us, Lord Haken. The choice is hers, of course, but I hope to persuade her – it is past time we get to know each other.” 

“Well past time,” Chani said, all the warmth freezing out of her voice. “But better late than never, I say.” 

“Melati is still a child,” Haken said. “And you surrendered your rights as her father long ago. The choice is mine whether she goes with you or not.” He glanced at Chani, reading her expression. “But… if Melati wishes it, we can discuss the matter further.” 

Pool knew he had to tread softly. His cheek still smarted from Cholla’s slap; he had intentionally delayed healing it as a reminder to choose his words with care. He gave Haken a respectful bow of the head. “Thank you, lord.” 

Haken made as if to speak more, then stopped and cocked his head to one side. “What is it, my lord?” Chani asked, her voice all smoky concern. 

“A sending. From Sust. They’ve found–” his golden eyes widened in horror. “A human! The fools have captured a human and they’re holding it at the Sun Gate!”


	2. Part Two

Melati plucked listlessly at her harp, skipping up and down between the strings. Yosha chuckled. “It takes more than three notes to make a song, you know.” 

She was in no mood for his playful teasing. Her eyes scanned the scene from her stone balcony. The flats sat empty; the majority of the elves had already sought out shelter from the sun. High above them a solitary elf circled like a hawk, held aloft by silk wings. It had to be Feathersnake, Melati decided. Bonebat’s wings were of healer-shaped flesh, and Windkin knew better than to exert himself in the midday heat. 

“Do you think Feathersnake likes me?” she asked idly. 

“Why wouldn’t he?” 

He was being deliberately obtuse. It made her feel spiteful. “But… do you think he’d like me? You know… as a lovemate.” 

“Oh.” Yosha’s voice betrayed not so much as a hint of dismay. 

“He’d make a good initiator,” she added, just to see how much she could taunt him. “Mahree’s always singing his praises.” She stole a glance at him, waiting to see a crack appear in his cheerful mask. 

“You’re a little young,” Yosha remarked skeptically. 

“No younger than others were.” 

“And a little skinny. I hear Feathersnake likes ’em rounder.” 

Hit for hit, Melati thought. Well played, soulbrother. She glanced down at her slim form, as yet rather lacking in maidenly curves. Yosha let her digest the barb before he asked, “Pool?” 

“What about him?” 

“Well, you’re not usually cruel without a reason. So what has he done?” 

“He’s meeting with Lord Haken right now.” 

“Why?” 

“Probably wants permission to drag me kicking and screaming into the Palace with him,” she said flatly. “He wants me to go to the New Land and ‘meet the family,’” she sneered. “My family is here. My life is here.” 

“I could go with you,” Yosha offered. “We could see Cricket.” 

“Ugh. You go running to him then. If you can’t wait the two months ’til his next visit.” 

“Don’t you ever want to see what’s beyond our walls?” 

She shrugged. “Haken’s shown me. It’s nothing special. Forests and wild elves and troll kingdoms and those stinking humans.” Nothing could compare with the world they had build at Oasis. 

“Anyway, I have seen one thing beyond our walls,” she said. “A secret cave, all my own.” 

“Liar. You’ve never been outside the walls by yourself. Neither of us have.” Two eights was the age of majority in Oasis, and until then they were only allowed to explore beyond the mountain walls under the watchful eye of an adult elf. 

“You don’t know everything about me,” she said loftily. “Soulbrother or not.” 

“Tell me then.” 

Melati glanced back at the doorway of her chambers, to make sure they were still alone. She beckoned Yosha closer. “Just below the Bridge of Memory, there’s a fault line in the rocks. Last year I rockshaped a small tunnel to the outside.” 

Yosha was stunned. “How? The rocks always seal up again, from all the spirits inside them. And anyway, the rockshapers would sense it.” 

“They didn’t! I think it was too small for them to notice. It lets out into a steep gully… almost as hard to climb as the walls themselves. But I’ve climbed it. Many times. There’s an outcropping out in the Thorn Fields, less than a hour’s walk from the wall. I’m making a cave there,” she said proudly. “It’s going to be my own private oasis. I’ve even sunk a well, and I think I can call up a hotspring.” 

Yosha studied her skeptically. “I don’t believe you. You haven’t been studying rockshaping that long.” 

“I’ll show you. If you can promise not to go running your mouth! Promise?” 

He nodded. **I promise, my soul’s sister,** he sent solemnly. “When will we go?” 

“Why not tonight? After lights-out.” 

He hesitated. “What if we get caught?” 

“We won’t. The sentries are only watching the main gates. And it’s not like you sleep tucked up with mama anymore,” a mocking edge crept into her voice. “Out the window and back in bed before midnight. Easy.” 

“Why don’t we go now? While everyone is resting?” 

“Are you cracked? We can’t go into the thorns in this heat. No, it has to be at night.” She smiled. “Unless you’re afraid to climb in the dark?” 

“I’m not afraid.” 

“Good. Then tonight.” 

“Tonight,” he agreed in a firm voice, though she could see the hesitation in his eyes. No matter. He’d do anything rather than be called a coward. And once she’d taken him out past the walls, he’d never dare break his word and reveal her secret lest he share her punishment. Whatever scolding she’d get from Haken and Chani, he would receive ten times worse from his mother. 

“Good. I’ll come find you after the lanterns go out–” She started, and the harp dropped from her hands to clatter against the stone. Two strings snapped. “Careful.” Yosha began to reach for it, then stopped when he saw Melati’s eyes aglow. “Sending?” he asked. 

“From Lady Chani – there’s a human here!” Melati cried, disgusted. 

“A human?” Yosha sat up taller. Like Melati he had never seen such a beast in the flesh, only heard of them in sendings and hearthside tales. “Inside the walls?” 

“At the Sun Gate. The Pride has captured one. Lady Chani says to come if I want to see it.” 

“Let’s go then!” he said eagerly. 

He made for the inner door and the spiral staircase at the center of Tallest Spire. Melati took a more direct route. She jumped off the balcony and used her floating magic to slow her descent. She dropped down from one level to the next, skipping off the railings of the other balconies decorating the exterior of the Spire. On the second level she nearly bowled over old Minyah, who was lingering outside to water her pot plants. 

“By Savah’s crown, girl!” Minyah hollered. “Either fly properly or use the stairs!” 

“Sorry!” Melati cried over her shoulder. 

She skimmed over the flats, barely an elf-span above the rocky soil. She had yet to truly master the art of flight; the pull of the earth still kept her low to the ground. But she could glide as fast a tuftcat could run. With no other elves out on the paths to impede her, she soon reached the Sun Gate at the eastern border of Oasis. 

She heard the Pride before she saw them; the snarls of tuftcats and the heated voices of elves. Five of the cats had formed a circle around their stricken prey, while the riders faced their lord. Pool was there too, shifting nervously on his feet next to Door and Spar. He looked up in alarm as he saw Melati approach. But Haken only had eyes for the errant hunters. 

“We found him out at Table Flats,” Coppersky was explaining. “He was alone, clearly dying.” 

“Then you should have finished him off and left him to rot!” Haken replied. 

“We thought…” Sust spoke up hesitantly. 

“What?!” 

“We thought you might want to question him. We haven’t seen a human inside the Thorn Fields since… forever!” he exclaimed. But Melati knew that was hyperbole. In the early days of Oasis, there had been close encounters with humans. But then Sust was both Wolfrider and Go-Back by birth – Melati was mildly impressed he could remember yesterday. 

Melati touched down at a safe distance. Chani beckoned her closer. 

“Melati?” Haken saw her at last. “Stay back – these creatures are dangerous.” 

“Not this one,” Chani said. “Come and see, child. It’s high time you got a proper look at our enemies.” 

Melati felt Pool’s critical eyes on her as she joined her foster mother. The hunters called the cats to disperse, and Chani guided the girl closer to the dying human. 

He was nothing at all like any of the sending pictures she had seen. Indeed he looked quite harmless. Tall, to be sure – he might be even as tall as Haken, had he the strength to stand. But he did not. He was clearly very old by his kind’s reckoning: his skin was wrinkled and brittle as old leather, and his long hair was white and tangled. He was barely conscious, and she could see that his eyes were clouded over with sickness. When he opened his mouth to breathe through cracked lips, the smell of decay was nauseating. He had almost no teeth, and his gums were swollen and weeping foul blackness. 

“Had he any mount?” Chani asked the hunters. “Any possessions?” 

Tufts shrugged, and the scarf she wore over her head slipped and fell away, revealing her shorn pate. Daughter of Tass and Coppersky, she had inherited hair that would have put Haken’s to shame in richness, if only she could be bothered to let it grow. But she preferred to shave her head, save for a few sidelocks she wore teased into ragged braids. She was the next youngest elf in Oasis after Melati and Yosha, and in a way, they both owed their existence to the slender huntress: had Tass not Recognized Coppersky on a visit to Oasis, her lovemate Cricket might never have lingered, never caught Maleen’s eye and triggered the chain of events that led to Yosha and Melati’s births. 

“All he has is what he’s wearing,” Tufts said. “I found him trying to cut into a squatneedle to drink its juice, but the only tool he had was a dull stone.” 

“Lost, do you think?” Chani mused. “Separated from his tribe?” 

“Or abandoned,” Coppersky said. “Maybe his tribe’s on the march and he couldn’t keep up.” 

“Maybe he knew he was dying and wandered off to die alone,” Sust offered. “Cats do that sometimes.” 

The human was coming around. His cloudy eyes struggled to focus. He mumbled something in a guttural tongue. 

Haken stepped forward and stood over the old man. The sun was behind him, throwing a long shadow. To Melati’s astonishment, Haken threw his long cloak back over his shoulder, exposing the mutilated stump of his left arm. Behind her she heard Tufts draw in a hiss through clenched teeth. Haken never showed his injury in public. But the old human seemed to understand. “M-mann-ak?” he whispered hoarsely. 

“Aye, it’s Manach,” Haken said, in the human tongue Melati knew from his sending stories. “The Maimed One, the Lord of Death. Why have come to me?” 

“Manach no sey,” the man whimpered. “H’aghroosh’al ach sen doch’tigal.” 

“I don’t know his words,” Haken said. He tried again in the human tongue. “What tribe are you? Why have you come here?” 

But the man continued to shake his head and mumble words they couldn’t understand. Chani sighed sadly. “Perhaps he comes from very far away. Perhaps their language has changed.” 

“What do you mean, changed?” Melati asked. 

“It happens,” Haken admitted. “Humans age so quickly. So do the things they make. Even words. Then new things are made to take the place of the old. I can’t learn anything from this one.” 

The commotion had roused a few spectators from their huts. Haken motioned for Door and Spar to keep them back at a safe distance. Yosha finally arrived, late and out of breath as usual. Maleen left her mount’s side to go to him. 

“Can’t you touch minds with him, lord?” Melati asked Haken. “Pull what you need from his thoughts?” 

“It doesn’t work like that, child. Human minds lack the openness of ours. Their minds are closed, their thoughts locked away.” 

“But… could you not open his mind? The powerful among us can send to beasts when we have to.” 

“Not easily,” Pool pointed out. “Wolfriders used to, before our blood ran thin. But humans… their minds are even less developed than beasts. To open a mind you need a door, and the humans have none.” 

His arrogance grated on her. “Then break down a wall and make a door,” she challenged. 

Haken smiled wryly. “You’re welcome to try, little one.” He gestured to the dying human. 

Melati hesitated, until she saw Pool’s incredulous stare. Then she spun on her heel and marched towards the human. 

“What are you doing?” Pool gasped. 

“Calm yourself, healer,” Haken said. “My lady is right, this beast is no threat to us. It is right Melati should be able to study him close.” 

“Why? Why should she need to? Oasis is meant to be a refuge from humans.” 

“Sust, your cats bring their young half-dead morsels to teach them to hunt, don’t they?” 

“Yes, lord.” 

“Well, then.” 

“Melati is a healer, not a hunter!” 

“And you are the only one who thinks the one precludes the other.” 

Melati listened to them argue. Her lord’s confidence in her filled her with pride. It gave her the courage to keep walking, to sink to her knees at the human’s side and look into his eyes. 

He was truly hideous. No wild animal ever reached such a state of advanced decay before being killed and consumed. He stank; his very skin reeked of disease, and to make matters worse he had pissed himself in his terror. She hesitated, hands outstretched. She could see the vermin crawling in his hair. 

The human was gibbering in delirium, each word borne on a cloud of foul breath. 

“Come away from there, Melati,” Pool ordered. “There is nothing to learn here.” 

You dare to give me orders? 

She overcame her revulsion and seized the human’s head in her hands. Her fingers directed her sendings into knives, piercing deep inside his mind. Haken had spoken truly; compared to elves – even to tuftcats or trolls – their minds seemed withered, sealed off. The organ of thought was large, crammed with neurons that even now were firing rapidly. Yet the part of the mind responsible for connections – the door Pool had spoken of – was completely absent. She was sickened. This being was utterly incapable of truly relating to any other. The very thought of going through life so isolated was terrifying to Melati. The blindness, the ignorance… the unfathomable loneliness! She was seized with pity for the poor beast. It was a wonder he could even recognize other creatures as alive, when his every thought was so confined to his own existence. 

She wanted to help him. She wanted to show him what lay beyond his walls. 

She probed with her mind, looking for a weak spot in his armor. At last she found one such place, a tiny opening in the web of crackling skyfire that made up the outermost horizon of his thoughts. She pushed inward, seeking to widen the tiny faultline. If she could reach in… make contact… surely the structure of his mind would bend to her will, like rock under her hands. 

But she couldn’t reach his thoughts. She felt the intricate web tear under the power of her magic. She felt the whole complex of his mind teeter, then collapse like a game of stacking-sticks. Still, she couldn’t make a connection. His body kept fighting her. She felt the skyfire racing through his body. She felt his flesh heave under her hands. 

“Melati!” 

Someone seized her elbow, pulled her back. She felt her awareness wrenched back into her body. She stared at the human in horror. 

What have I done to him? 

Blood poured from his nose and mouth. It streamed from his ears and even from the corners of his eyes. He convulsed in his death throes, his brittle bones snapping as they battered against the ground. When the end came he froze in a final spasm, his back arched, his sightless eyes turned black by ruptured blood vessels. 

“What did you do?” Pool demanded, his voice a wolf’s snarl. He shook her, raising her half to her feet. “What did you do?” 

“Nothing!” 

“Let her go!” Haken ordered. Pool dropped Melati, and she staggered away from the foul corpse. Her hands were covered in human blood; she wiped them on her dress without thinking. She looked up and found the riders of the Pride all looking at her with varying expressions of horror. 

“Is this how you teach your healers?” Pool was raging. “By torturing dying animals?” 

“I wasn’t–” Melati protested. “I was just trying… I wanted to fix him!” 

“Hunters do worse when they bring down a kill,” Haken dismissed. “Not that you would know.” 

“No, I would not. I live to protect life. To nurture it.” 

“But not your own young.” 

“I am here to remedy that failing. But I see I have waited too long to return. You’re raising her to be a second Winnowill!” 

The name dropped heavy like a stone. Everyone turned to Haken in anticipation of the storm. Even Melati felt a shiver of fear for her sire. Had he been gone so long that he had forgotten the first rule of Oasis? 

“What do you know of my daughter?” Haken challenged, his voice a deadly whisper. “She died long before you were born.” 

Pool swallowed, cowed in the face of Haken’s quiet rage. Still, he had enough wolf in him to hold his ground. “My sire knew her deeds well enough,” he said. “So did the Mother of Memory. Paingiver! Loveless One! And in Savah’s name, I will not allow you to lead my daughter down that same path!” 

Melati stood frozen. She had no idea her sire had such courage. He did not so much as drop his eyes when Haken stepped up to him so that they stood toe-to-toe, though his shoulders began to shake as he was forced to look up, and up, to hold the High One’s gaze. 

Haken spoke in a voice so soft Melati needed to reach out with her healer’s senses to hear. “Perhaps your sire told you of my deeds. Be glad the years have tempered me. I will tell you this only once. You have no claim to Melati. You have no right to invoke Savah’s name, infant that you are. I will grant you mercy this once, so that all can see the Lord of Oasis takes pity on those sick in spirit. But if you challenge me once more, either in public or in private, or if ever you dare to slander my daughter… you will never set foot inside these walls again. Do you hear me?” 

“I hear you, lord,” Pool said. 

“Good. Now get out of my sight.” 

Pool cast one last resentful look at his daughter before he departed. Melati became aware of the breath she had been holding, and released it. 

Chani came over to her. “Oh, my dear, your pretty dress. Don’t worry. I’m sure we can wash that blood out.” 

She draped a long arm over Melati’s shoulder, and Melati hugged her gratefully. “I didn’t mean any harm,” she whispered. 

“Shh. I know you didn’t. And there is no harm done. Pay no mind to Pool.” 

“But the human!” 

“He would have died anyway. It was a mercy – and I daresay just as quick as a dagger.” 

“His mind… it was so empty! It was like he didn’t have a soul!” 

“I’m not sure humans do. Perhaps that’s why they’re so dangerous. But you’ve learned something today. Both about humans, and about your own limits.” She gave Melati’s shoulders a gentle squeeze. “This was an important day. Come, we’ll have some cider and talk about it.” 

Melati let Chani lead her away. As they passed by Yosha, she looked to him hopefully, and he tried to smile back. But for the first time she saw him look at her with fear in his eyes. 

* * * 

“He’s sick,” Pool hissed in the privacy of his mother’s chambers. “And he’s teaching her his sickness!” 

“Lord Haken has always chosen the path of aggression,” Leetah agreed. “It is his nature. As your nature is the path of compassion. So choose gentleness this time. Go to Melati and apologize. In another day or two, seek out Haken and make your amends. You cannot afford to be have your sire’s temper now.” 

“My sire.” Pool sat down on the bench next to her. “I have been thinking of him more and more since Melati was born. Strange… for so many years he was nothing but a distant memory… I could scarcely recall his face, his voice. But now I’m always wondering ‘What would Scouter say to this? What would he do in my place?’” 

“He would stand his ground like a stubborn old wolf, and he would pay for it. You do not need to wonder. You were there when it happened.” 

Pool nodded. In the end, Scouter had been nearly as gnarled and white-haired as that human, yet the wolf in him had been stronger than ever. He and the council had clashed so many times, and Scouter had grown so brazen in his defiance, that Haken had finally given him an ultimatum. The High One must have known Scouter would spring willingly into the trap. 

Leetah had offered to share his exile, but he would have none of it. They had been lifemates for four thousand years, and now his life was nearing its end. He had left Oasis with his jackwolf and a few supplies; no one expected him to last more than a moon-dance in the Burning Waste alone. But three more years had passed before Leetah awoke with the terrible knowledge that Jial was gone. 

“Melati is beyond me now, isn’t she?” 

“Not yet. But you are running out of time.” **And you are right, Pool. What Haken is teaching her… it will lead her down the same path as the Loveless One.** 

“Loveless… yes. There is no love in her eyes. No gentleness, no compassion. The way she talked about Ruffel… she is more like a snake than an elf.” 

**Hush. Save such thoughts for locksendings alone. You can save her, Pool. You can turn her back onto the true path of the healer. I have tried, but she has closed her heart to me. So do what I cannot. Heal where I cannot. Whatever Haken says, you are her father, and he cannot replace you. His love is hard, demanding. Many elves have died trying to prove themselves worthy of it.** 

**You mean, in Blue Mountain?** 

**Not only there. Think of all the Heroic Dead… and ask yourself how many of those deaths were truly necessary. Pool, you feel everything so much more than the rest of us. It is your gift, and your burden. Your grief set Melati on this path. But your love can save her.** 

“I wish I had your faith, Mother.” 

“Go to her. I know you seldom felt you had the love of your sire. You did, kitling… but not in the way you needed. Now is your turn to do better. Use your gift. Feel what she needs, and offer it to her freely.” 

Pool obeyed, though his heart wasn’t in it. He waited until after twilight had fallen, when the supper hour would be concluding. This high in the mountains, the temperature plunged after sunset. He kindled a fire in his hearth and drew the heavy curtains against the chill. Melati refused to answer his sendings, and he knew better than to go through Haken. So he sent to Chani. 

**Please, I only wish to apologize. Tell her that after I have said my piece, I will not trouble her again.** 

After a moment’s hesitation, he felt her spirit sigh. **Wait. I will see what I can do.** 

He waited. Soon enough Chani’s sending touched his mind anew. **She is not in her rooms. You will just have to sit on your words a little longer. I imagine that will prove easy for you.** 

So much for the Lady of Oasis being the more forgiving of the pair. **She has gone out? At this hour?** Pool parted the wool curtain to glance outside. The clearstone lanterns strung between the huts were still burning, but the mountain walls were lost in shadow. Surely it was far too late for a child to be out alone. 

**She is almost a maiden, Pool. I do not pen her in at night like a zwoot.** 

**Do you know where she is? ** 

**Probably off dallying with Yosha, to the judge by the way she was squirming at supper. Take my advice, healer. Leave her be. I will tell her that you send your apologies, and she will choose whether or not to see you.** 

**Very well.** Selfishly, Pool was relieved to be spared another confrontation. But he couldn’t quite shake the feeling of discomfort at the thought of his daughter sneaking out in search of lovegames. 

Still, better Yosha than another. Everyone had been expecting them to Recognize since their birth, after all. 

* * * 

**It’s not lights-out yet,** Yosha locksent in annoyance, when Melati signalled him from outside his hut. 

**It’s close enough. I couldn’t bear to stay inside any onger. Come on.** 

After a few minutes, she saw Yosha clamber out of his bedroom window. **Mother’s still sitting up, we have to be quiet,** he warned as they crept away from the huts. 

**I’m not the problem.** Melati floated a few inches above the ground while Yosha’s sandals scuffed against the sandy soil. They were almost seen, first by a lantern-snuffer, then by a tipsy couple wandering home after supper with friends. But they stuck to the shadows and at last reached the narrow pathway that led up to the Bridge of Memory. 

The climb was easy at first – Ahdri had shaped the steps wide and flat. They crouched low as they snuck past a row of huts built into the mountainside. Higher up the stairs petered out into a gravelly incline, and then the path disappeared altogether from the jagged rock face. 

“Let’s… let’s stop here a minute,” Yosha said, letting his weight rest on a thin ledge. He looked up the side of the mountain. It was nearly sheer now. The only handholds were to be found in a thin seam that ran all the way up to the arching Bridge, like a stone ladder. The Bridge was not really meant to be crossed; Ahdri had shaped it merely as a memento for the elders, a reminder of their first home. But to the generations born in Oasis, it was simply another challenging rock to climb. 

“How much further up is your tunnel?” Yosha asked, regarding the ladder of handholds dubiously. In daytime it was easy enough to negotiate. But by moonlight, it was a daunting prospect. 

“See that shadow there?” Melati pointed to a dark smudge in the rockface. “You edge around that cornice, and it brings you to a landing. From there you just have to haul yourself through the gap in the rocks.” 

“I can’t see it.” 

“You will when you get closer to it. Come on.” 

**Mel… I don’t think this is such a good idea.** 

**Oh, come on, you zwootling. I’ll lock minds with you. Will that help?** She reached out with her thoughts as she done earlier that day, pushing beyond the normal level of sending. But unlike the human, Yosha’s mind had a door, and it opened willingly. Her thoughts mingled with his, and her strong will gave him strength. She lent him her courage and felt him reluctantly muster his own. He began to climb again. 

Melati led the way up the last few elf-spans, climbing more slowly now, feeling the weight of Yosha’s fear in her limbs. She found it harder to concentrate on the handholds. She usually floated up the rockface, her hands and feet only grazing the stone. But she couldn’t float and hold Yosha’s mind at the same time. No matter. She had been scaling the cliffs long before she had unlocked her airwalking talents. She could remember how to do it the hard way. 

Her sandal skidded on a dusty foothold. A bolt of sudden terror raced through her, almost severing their connection. Fighting to concentrate, she summoned just enough floating magic to steady herself. Her sandal soles had worn too smooth for proper rockclimbing; she would have done better to climb barefoot. 

She looked up at the cornice they had to skirt around. It seemed far out of reach. For the first time since stealing out of the village below, she felt genuine fear. She wobbled on the rocks and a soft whimper escaped her lips. She had never felt so helpless before. She readied her floating powers to save herself. 

But then, unbidden, a feeling of calm and strength washed over her. 

**I’m here, Mel,** came Yosha’s thought. **I’m here with you.** 

To her amazement, it was now his sending which was supporting her. She had always been the stronger one. She had always been the goad driving him on. He was the one who always needed her help, not the other way around. Shame and disgust rose in her gorge. She was not used to being the weaker one. 

Again, a wave of gentle encouragement bore her up. He felt her shame – how could he not, when their minds were so tightly entwined? Yet he didn’t judge. He bore her no resentment – though she so often treated him as little more than a pet. He wanted nothing but to help her… to love her. 

She understood now why he was satisfied with so little of her affection. A feeling of utter tranquility rose up from him to envelop her. Such a strange feeling, so different from her own constant restlessness. She had been raised to be always on the alert, always hungry for more. But Yosha’s soul was at peace. 

She could drown in this feeling, let it wash away all she was…. 

No! We are not one soul in two bodies! I am Melati! I am my own master! I am no one’s prey! 

She yanked her thoughts free of his, and severed the connection as swiftly as slamming a door. She closed her mind to everything but the rock under her hands and feet, the whisper of the wind in her ears. 

“Mel–” 

She heard his feet scuff on their footholds. 

“Don’t leave me!” he cried. 

She looked down at his trembling form, an elfspan below her. One foot dangled over empty air. His right hand scrabbled desperately at the cliff face. 

Get your foot up, you fool! she wanted to scream. Always three paws on the rock! 

His left hand lost its purchase. He began to slide… so slowly at first that she almost didn’t understand it. She always thought when someone fell, it would be as grand and terrifying as an eagle’s dive. This was so gentle… like a drop of water rolling down a waterspout. 

“Melati…” he whimpered. 

Too late she thought of her floating magic. 

And then he was gone, his final cry of _“Melaaaaaaaatiiiiii!”_ echoing off the rocks. 

She reached out with her magic, trying to lasso his outstretched hand. But the pull of the earth was too strong. 

* * * 

Pool heard the open sending. So did everyone in Oasis. A crowd had already gathered by the huts under the Bridge of Memory. Pool pushed his way through the horror-struck elves. “Let me through – let me through!” he cried. 

Elves were weeping. Someone was standing on tiptoe to see better, while someone else was shouting, “Don’t look, oh High Ones, don’t look!” 

Pool found Melati on her knees, head and hands bent over a bloody mound of flesh. Pool stared at it, uncomprehending for a moment. Then he saw the tattered cloth trousers, the snakeskin belt… the tuft of silver hair as yet unstained by dark blood. 

“Oh… High Ones, what have you done?!” 

What had come to rest at the bottom of the mountainside was scarcely identifiable. The chest was crushed, the body bent sharply at the waist, hips and legs twisted away from the rest of him. By the way his limbs had tangled together, he had broken every long bone in his body on the descent. And the head… Pool fought the sudden flood of bile that rose in his throat. 

Over his shoulder, someone else lost that fight. The stench of fresh vomit mingled with the reek of spilled blood. 

Incredibly, Melati was still trying to heal him. Her healing aura pulsed and shifted, further distorting the ruin of Yosha’s face. “Help me…” she whispered. “I need help….” She looked up at Pool in disbelief. “Don’t just stand there, you fool! Help me!” 

Pool knew it was futile. Still, he crouched down and touched Yosha’s mangled hand. He felt the shattered bones click as they shifted under the torn skin. He let out his senses… and found the dreadful confirmation. 

“He’s gone,” he said. 

“No, no, he’s not. He can’t be. I can fix this. I can! Where is Leetah? Where is Lady Chani? I can do this, I just need some help!” 

He could hear himself in her desperate voice. He was back in that bloody bed, fourteen years ago, trying to patch together a broken husk. 

“Maleen!” someone cried. 

He turned. The huntress was trying to push her way through the throng, and her neighbors were doing their utmost to hold her back. “Is it Yosha?” she demanded, her voice rising in panic. “Let me see – I need to see – Yosha, my _Yoshaaaaaaaaaaa!”_

Her hands rose to her face. Her nails raked at her eyes, to blot out that last, horrible sight of her son. Hands seized her and restrained her before she could harm herself. She screamed, a long wordless cry of anguish. Pool rushed to her and extended a healing aura. But Maleen tossed her head and rebuffed his sendings. 

_“My son! My SON!”_

The other villagers had Maleen securing held. Pool turned back on his daughter. She was staring at Yosha’s crushed face with new eyes. It seemed Maleen’s wild grief had broken through her denial. 

“What happened?” Pool demanded, and he heard his sire’s growl in his throat. 

“We… we were climbing,” Melati murmured tonelessly. “He slipped. I tried to float him. But I wasn’t strong enough.” 

“YOU!” Maleen howled. “You killed him! You killed my precious boy! He was your soulbrother and you killed him!” Weeping, she sagged in her captors’ arms. “I told him not to climb – I told him–” 

“I didn’t…” Melati protested. But her voice held no conviction. 

Haken arrived on scene, scattering the other spectators by his mere presence. Even he recoiled at the sight before him. But he recovered himself quickly. “What has happened?” he demanded. “Melati?” 

Pool answered before she could. “She led Yosha to climbing the cliffs. In darkness!” 

“I didn’t mean…” Melati whispered. “Can’t you fix him, Haken? Like you did with Chani?” 

“Oh, child…” Haken said mournfully. 

“It’s no different! She was broken, so is Yosha. Her spirit came back. His will too. We just need to heal him.” She reached for him again, but Maleen’s shriek stopped her. 

“NO! Don’t you touch my boy! Haven’t you done enough?” 

“For pity’s sake, someone cover him,” Haken ground out. 

Someone produced a zwoot-wool cloak. Pool spread it over the fallen elf. Melati continued to sit, motionless, as Yosha’s blood slowly began to seep through the weave. 

Pool took her by the arm and yanked her to her feet. She didn’t even seem to notice his roughness. 

“I… I don’t understand…” Melati whispered. “I didn’t mean….” 

Pool was too grieved to temper his sending. **This is what you are, Melati, whether you will it or not! Lifetaker!** 

“No – no, I’m not!” 

**The moment I first saw your face – I saw the Enemy staring back at me. You are death made flesh. My flesh – my curse! I wish to the stars you had never been born!** 

She stared at him wide-eyed. Her lips began to form a denial, but she had no defense against the brutal truth of her sire’s thoughts. 

“Please…” she whispered instead. 

He released her arm, he recoiled from her as if she stank of death. He turned and ran from the scene, unable to bear the sights and sounds of tragedy a moment longer. 

* * * 

Haken sent immediately to the Palace. It arrived within the hour, bearing Cricket and his family. Yosha’s body was borne away under Leetah’s instructions. In the privacy of her chambers, she reset his bones in a vague approximation of the elfin form, and washed off the worst of the blood. Then with Cricket’s help, she gently wrapped him in a shroud, bound with cords. 

Cricket paused to cut off one lock of silver hair, then another. “So Maleen and I can keep something of him,” he explained. 

Leetah nodded, then tucked the last bit of sheet around Yosha’s head and tied it off. 

“It’s always been our way to let the wolves have our husks,” Cricket remarked. 

“Disgusting. Maleen will not stand for that. I will not stand for it. He is a son of Oasis. He is not meat for wolves.” 

“No, just meat for worms,” Cricket sighed. He rubbed at his swollen eyes with the heel of his hand. But though his voice caught in his throat, no more tears would come. “It doesn’t matter,” he sighed. “We’re all just meat in the end. Making something grow from the ground is just as good as feeding our wolf friends.” 

“Would Yosha have liked that?” Melati spoke from the shadows, startling them both. 

“Great Sun, child, how long have you been there?” Leetah demanded. 

“Long enough. Cricket, do you think Yosha would have liked that? To be… laid to rest as a Wolfrider?” 

“I think you should leave,” Leetah said. 

“He talked about you so much,” Melati continued. “He could never wait until your next visit. I think… he wanted to go to the Great Holt, when he was older.” 

“Enough!” Leetah snapped. 

“No, it’s all right,” Cricket said. “Thank you, Melati. It… makes me glad to hear it. Maybe his spirit is already there. But your grandmother’s right. He was a son of Oasis. His husk should be treated as one.” 

“I can’t bear the thought of burying him inside the walls,” Melati said tearfully. “He always talked about wanting to see what was beyond the mountains. That’s – that’s what we were doing when he fell. Trying to see off the Bridge of Memory. We’d never done it at nighttime before. We wanted to see how far we could see. I… I know we give our dead to the ground… but couldn’t we give Yosha to the ground outside Oasis? He could feed the Thorn Fields. He’d like that. He always wanted to be a rider when he was older. He wanted to protect Oasis. He could do that now.” 

“That’s not your decision to make,” Leetah said. “And I think you’ve done quite enough for one night.” 

Melati did not move from the doorway. “Please. I don’t want him under the fields. I can’t bear to think of him buried next to….” 

“You might have thought of that before you led him on that fool’s climb,” the healer said. But Cricket looked at her thoughtfully. 

“He would have wanted to protect Oasis?” 

Melati nodded. “It was all he ever talked about.” 

“It’s just meat now,” Cricket sighed at last. “Does it really matter what it feeds?” 

* * * 

They held a memorial for Yosha at dawn. The jackwolves and their riders howled, while the Sun Folk joined hands and shared sendings of the young lad snatched away too soon. Haken vowed that Yosha’s name would be added to the list of Heroic Dead. There was nothing more laudable, he said, than challenging one’s limitations. 

Maleen was in no shape to attend; Pool had cast a sleeping trance over her so she could begin to heal. Melati did attend either. She bound Yosha’s shrouded body to a zwoot and left Oasis by the Great Gate. She wanted to bury him herself, she said. It was her first step in atonement. No one argued with her. It seemed a harsh penance, but an appropriate one. 

She returned alone with the zwoot at midday, quiet and haunted. She went into her rooms to sleep, but when Chani went to rouse her for supper, she was gone. 

When Chani sent to her, she hit a psychic barrier. But the faintest echo told her the girl was somewhere high in the mountain walls… perhaps even beyond them. 

The Lady of Oasis did not press the matter. Now more than ever was the time for patience. If Melati needed time and space for her healing, then she was not after all so different from her sire. 

When the Palace left at dusk, Pool was aboard it. Door would follow in a month, as agreed. But the healer could not bear to stay another moment inside what had become for him a city of the dead. 

When Maleen awoke from her trance, she seemed calmer. Cricket offered to stay for a time, and she was grateful for it. She never asked what happened to Yosha’s body. For her, as for Cricket, it was just an empty husk. 

* * * 

Mother Moon was rising as Melati stole through the forest of cacti towards the rocky hummock, accompanied by the dark Preserver. She knew the route through the prickly maze by heart now. The rock formation itself was soft sandstone, about the size of the kilnworks at Oasis. A tangle of dried creepers signalled the concealed passage just beyond a thin wall of rock. 

Melati touched the stone and it melted away. She stepped into the passage and paused just long enough to light her handheld lantern with her gaze before she sealed up the rock wall behind her. 

She followed a staircase down into the main chamber. Some ten feet underground, the air was cool. Melati shrugged off her wool cloak and floated her lantern up until she could hook it on its ceiling-anchor. Then she turned her attention to the other lanterns, hanging unlit in a row from the ceiling. She stared hard, summoning the memories of all her lessons with Haken, until the lanterns sprang to life with a series of bright pops. 

The shrouded body lay where she had left it, on the floor beneath the lanterns. She returned to it and began to shape a large stone slab that slowly raised the bundle from the ground. 

“I told you I’d show you my cave,” Melati whispered, brushing her hands gently over the cloth. 

“What longred-highthing mean?” the Preserver demanded. “No tell Flitrin about cave.” 

“Hush. Flitrin tell no one, remember? Not even Lord Haken. Flitrin promise.” 

“Flitrin promise,” the Preserver agreed glumly. “Not even Lord Highthing. Why longred-highthing here?” 

She ignored Flitrin’s queries. Instead she set to work with her little dagger, snipping the cords that held the shroud in place. When she pulled the sheet away, she scowled at the still-mangled form. Leetah had done little beyond sponging off the worst bloodstains and straightening his limbs. 

“No matter. I’ll set you right.” 

She examined the body with her eyes and her hidden senses. The broken bones were incidental – once she set the blood flowing again she could easily knit them together. The punctured lungs would prove a little more challenging, but it was nothing she couldn’t manage. 

“Your head… now, that’s the tricky part.” 

He had left perhaps half of his skull behind on the rocks. One whole side of his face was obliterated. Only one eye remained, closed in repose. Under the clotted blood and hair, she could see the contents of his skull, misshapen and already beginning to putrify. 

“You didn’t leave me much to work with,” she sighed. 

No matter. It would just take time… 

She would show Pool that she was no lifetaker. She would show them all. 

She imagined the praise they would shower upon her. She imagined Yosha’s proud smile as he shared in the acclaim. 

She would see him smile again. And he would forgive her for shutting him out before. 

“Flitrin, make wrapstuff.” 

“But… whyfor?” Flitrin asked. “No seed inside. Meat go bad already.” 

“Flitrin DO!” she commanded fiercely. 

Grumbling, the Preserver set to work. 

Melati breathed a sigh of relief as she watched Yosha’s body disappear under silver threads. He would be safe here, while she mastered the skills she needed to resurrect him. She wasn’t ready yet; she still had much more to learn. But Yosha’s spirit could wait. And now, so too could his body. 

Everything would be set right. It would just take time.


	3. Part Three

The snake writhed on the ground in its death throes. Even cut cleanly in two, its whole body convulsed with muscle contractions as its lifeblood drained away. Melati waited until the snake had gone completely still before she put away her dagger. 

She counted the time by the shifting of the cactus shadows. When she reckoned an hour had passed, she knelt down and placed the two halves of the snake back together. Her healing magic flowed through her fingers, knitting the severed bones and nerves, stitching flesh and sinew back together. When the basic framework was restored, she turned her attention to the jelly-like marrow of the snake’s many tiny bones. She leeched moisture from its tissues to fill its shrivelling blood vessels, and coaxed fresh blood cells from its marrow. Then, when she was certain she had enough blood pooling inside the inert conduits, she restarted its heart. 

Muscles twitched as blood returned to flesh. Lungs filled with fresh air. 

Now, the true test…. 

The brain had gone cold; the spark of life – the soul – had fled. Even the greatest healers gave up hope once the spirit was gone. 

But Melati worked on. She drew on deep reserves of magic, and the training of a High One. She shut out the distractions of the outside world and focused her entire being on the snake’s quiet mind. 

A spark crackled to life deep inside its brain. Then another. Then another. The light grew steadily, until it struck a critical threshold, and erupted into a great cascade of skyfire. 

It was no different than firestaring, really. Light, life… it was all simply energy. 

The snake’s tail moved as impulses began to race down the spinal nerves. The animal thrashed, righting itself on its belly, and struck at Melati with fangs extended. 

“Scat!” Melati drew her hand back with a hiss. The snake slithered away. 

She shook her hand to ease the sting. The venom was no more than a mild annoyance to her. In seconds she had purged it from her blood. The puncture marks took only a moment longer to seal up. 

“See if I bother to bring you back to life next time!” she growled. But the snake had already disappeared across the sand. Melati rose and turned back to Oasis. 

* * * 

Three years had passed since Yosha’s fall from the cliffs. Life in Oasis had continued, ever-changing yet ever the same. The youth’s name had been carved in the list of the Heroic Dead, just as Haken had promised. And as so often happened among elves, death had prompted new life. Longfeather and his lifemate Drell had recently welcomed their third child, a daughter named Saffron, and she was the darling of both youths and elders. 

Except for Melati, who hated the sight of the infant. Some smelly squalling Go-Back’s spawn could never fill the void Yosha’s death had left. She wasn’t even born of Recognition! Drell could easily have had her by any male, had she not already chosen Longfeather’s bed. 

Yet so many seemed content to move on, as if one elf could be a replacement for any other. Melati was starting to understand, now, why her sire had fled Oasis after her mother’s death. It wasn’t easy to forever be reminded of what you had lost, yet to be constantly urged to forget. 

Yet Yosha’s mother had stayed. After spending nearly a year in a deep depression, Maleen returned to the Pride and climbed astride her tuftcat once more. When she wasn’t hunting, she often helped to look after little Saffon – not that the infant lacked for caregivers. Spending time with the baby often reduced her to tears, but she claimed they were not all bitter. 

Melati remembered dimly the few years she had spent in Maleen’s hut, being nursed and raised alongside Yosha, after Ruffel’s death in childbirth. Maleen had been prone to tears then too. Melati’s presence had been a constant reminder of Ruffel’s absence. But unlike Pool, she had seemed to draw strength from her pain. Just as now she seemed to find some strange joy in reliving the early days of her motherhood with Saffron. 

Well, that wouldn’t last much longer. Once she had Yosha back, she would forget all about the floating Go-Back baby. 

Melati was getting close. For the past three years she had immersed herself in the study of healing magic. She had told her grandmother Leetah that she meant to atone for Yosha’s death by ensuring the list of Heroic Dead grew no longer. And fool for sentiment that she was, Leetah took her at her word. She never even thought to search inside Melati’s thoughts during their locksendings for a hidden motive. 

Chani proved harder to deceive. Her foster-mother had taken note of her frequent disappearances shortly after Yosha’s death. “I know you value your freedom, child,” she’d said. “And our lord will not hear of your exploits beyond the walls from me. But you must tell me… what are you doing all alone out there?” 

Melati had had the lie ready. “Sometimes I go to where I buried Yosha, between the roots of a cloud-tree. I put my hand on the trunk… and it’s almost as if I can feel his spirit. And sometimes I just go walking. I listen to all the animals… I can feel their vibrations, like a million tiny beating hearts. So much life… it helps to feel it. I don’t know why, but it does.” 

“You know you are still too young to be outside the walls by yourself.” 

“I’m almost eight-and-seven now. And I’m not some helpless farmer – I’m a magic-user, a strong one! There’s nothing out there that can hurt me. I never go out of sight of the walls.” 

**I worry about you. You’re hardly sleeping. You never play music anymore. You spend your days studying with Leetah and Haken, then you spend all night wandering the Thorn Fields like… like a wild animal.** 

Her sending conjured an image – a distant memory of a gray wolf pacing the hillside, and a young child calling out for her mother…. 

**I fear I’m losing you, child.** 

**I’m not Timmain,** Melati insisted. **I’m not going mad like she did. I swear. I know what I’m doing.** 

In sending there was only truth, and the conviction in Melati’s thoughts was strong. Chani had never been an over-protective mother. Yet she pressed one last time. **Truly, Melati, is there anything you need to tell me?** 

Melati stared back, the picture of innocence. She felt Chani’s sending penetrating deep inside her mind, searching. She was the first elf born on the World of Two Moons, and her sending was powerful. But Melati had learned well from her brush with that human’s mind, the day Yosha had died. Among the other talents she had sharpened was the ability to raise the walls inside her own mind. 

Still, Chani’s tireless probing demanded some secret yielded, and Melati gave her one. **It was my fault Yosha died,** she admitted, letting her eyes fill with tears. **He didn’t want to climb at night, but I made him. I said I’d locksend with him the whole way… but I got scared. I closed my mind. And that’s when he lost his balance and fell.** 

Chani heard the truth, and withdrew her sending. “Oh, my poor child….” 

“I need him to know how sorry I am. I’ve tried to talk to him through the Little Palace. But he won’t answer me. I told you – I think his spirit is out there somewhere. Maybe in the cloud-tree, maybe in the sand or the rocks. But I can’t rest until I’ve found him… until I know he forgives me.” 

Chani knew more than most elves about regrets… and how difficult it was for spirits to reach back into the physical realm. She nodded gravely, and had never asked about the matter again. 

The encounter only bolstered Melati’s confidence. I can hide my thoughts from a High One! If she could do that, surely restoring Yosha was nearly within her reach. 

Still, she would not rush the endeavor. His broken body would keep forever, sealed in wrapstuff and hidden in her secret cave. She wouldn’t cut open his cocoon until she was certain she could succeed. 

The damage to his body was easily fixed. Her experiments in the Thorn Fields had proved that. Over the past three years, she had crippled all manner of beasts, then restored them to health. As her power had grown more refined, so had her experiments. She had drained tuskhogs of their blood, then forced their marrow to make more. She had sliced off body parts of snakes and ravvits, they reattached them. She had tried her hand at fleshshaping, trying to remake a lizard as a bird. There had been failures, of course – many wretched mistakes she had been forced to destroy or abandon. But each setback only brought her closer to her goal. 

And the triumphs – remembering them made her heart sing. Once she had made a klipspringer fall from a mountainside and watched its body break apart. It took the better part of a night, but dawn saw the beast back on the cliffs, unharmed. Once she had made a ravvit change his fur for scales, and watched the funny little hopping lizard bound away. Once she had even dared to sneak into the zwoot pen late at night, and quietly killed their best milking-mare. The next morning Mirith collected a full pail of milk from the restored beast and noticed nothing amiss. 

She was confident she could repair Yosha’s body. His mind would be more difficult. His head had taken such catastrophic damage. And she could hardly kill an elf to practice resurrection. A human might serve; their minds were somewhat similar in construction, if horribly stunted. But since that dying old man had staggered into the Thorn Fields three years ago, not a single human had passed within a quarter-moon’s ride of Oasis, and she couldn’t take the risk of such a long absence. She certainly couldn’t ask for help, not when even Haken – who had risked the Palace itself to revive Chani from her long death – had told her Yosha was lost forever. 

How they would praise her when she returned to Oasis with her soulbrother on her arm, reborn and stronger than ever! She would go down in their histories as a healer without parallel. When elves yet-to-be-born told tales of the greatest magic-users, her name would be spoken in the same hushed tones as Sunstream, Rayek, Weatherbird, even Haken himself. 

You’re raising her to be a second Winnowill! Pool had accused. But he was thinking too small. She would surpass Winnowill. The powers that had been denied Haken’s firstborn even after thousands of years would soon be hers. If the Pride and the farmers still gave her wary looks, those looks would be tinged with awe, not disgust. Even Pool, that high-headed windbag – deserter! failure of a father! – even he would have to bow his head and acknowledge her as his better. 

She needed only to choose her moment now. And during the season of Bloomtide, she had her chance. 

* * * 

When Pool had asked for a rockshaper to help Aurek in the New Land, he had promised the work would not take more than a year. In fact, it had taken nearly four. But now the Great Egg was complete, and after being feted by the elves of the Palace and the Grandfather Tree, Door and Spar were due to return home. 

Haken ordered no effort spared to welcome back his great-grandson. The Pride and the Jackwolf Riders competed to see who could bring in the most meat. The bakery ovens fired day and night to produce enough bread for a grand feast. Door’s grandson Longfeather directed the other airwalkers as they hung lanterns and banners from the highest peaks. The Bridge of Memory was draped in multi-colored silks. 

The Palace touched down in the central flat, and elves – Oasis folk and visitors mingling together – arranged themselves in two great circles that ringed the crystal structure. Palacemaster Rayek had brought his whole family from the New Land, and Melati found himself pushed forward to be introduced to Swift the Seeker, the fabled Wolfrider chieftess who had led the quest for the Palace. 

“We met once, long ago,” Swift said to her. “You probably don’t remember.” 

Melati summoned a vague smile and waited impatiently for the wolf-chief to move on. 

“Your father came with us,” Swift offered. “But, ah… I think he’s with Leetah in the Palace right now. Perhaps after we eat I can rustle him up for you.” 

“No. Thank you.” 

Surprisingly, Swift did not seem fazed by her curt refusal. **I know what it’s like to war with one’s sire,** she sent easily, as she let Rayek draw her away to greet another old friend. 

Cricket was also among the Palace visitors. Melati hadn’t expected to see him; he had quit Oasis once Maleen was back on her feet, and she had imagined he would never return. But he walked up to her and gave her a gentle hug. 

“You’re looking well.” 

“You too,” she said. Suddenly finding herself on the verge of tears she blurted out, “I miss him.” 

“So do we all, cub.” He squeezed her hands and gave a bittersweet smile before moving away. 

I’ll bring him back to you, she vowed silently. 

For the sake of appearances, Melati remained for the feast’s official commencement. As the honored one, Door was offered the first cuts of roasted meat, the finest cheeses and the best vintage of honeywine. Then he took his seat at Haken’s right hand, to endure the boisterous congratulations of his many descendants. He had sired a race of Gliders, just as he had famously promised. But enough Wolfrider and Go-Back blood had made it into the mix that they seldom behaved with typical Glider reserve. 

At the first course of grilled vegetables and cheeses, Melati ate heartily. When the meat course arrived, she gorged. Drinkbearers passed through the crowd, and she refilled her goblet again and again with dreamberry wine. As the third course came around, she asked Chani if she could be excused. 

“I think I’ve had enough celebrating, Lady Mother,” she said, rubbing her stomach. 

“I don’t wonder. You’ve had enough wine to drown a zwoot, and you ate like you were trying to outdo Coppersky!” 

She walked back to Tallest Spire, making a good show of reeling from the wine. But as soon as she was inside, she used her healer’s powers to purge the dizziness from her head. She stole down to the basement rooms, then opened up an old tunnel Door had shaped then sealed years ago. No more did she need to scale the cliffs – as her powers had grown, she had sensed all sorts of half-finished and forgotten tunnels under Oasis. Now she could simply reopen them at will and stroll under the walls. 

She ran through the Thorn Fields, her eyes fixed on the rocky cap that rose above the plateau. The festivities would drag on all night, she knew from experience. The revellers would drink and eat and dance themselves to exhaustion, and by sunrise the hardier Wolfriders would still be celebrating. Still, there was no time to waste. She didn’t know how long it would take to heal Yosha’s husk – even with the energy from a full meal in her belly – and she had to finish before the Palace left. 

The Palace was the key. It alone could supply the power she needed to call Yosha’s soul back into his body. She had toyed with the thought of stealing the Little Palace for the night, but she doubted its strength would be sufficient. Besides, there was too great a risk of being caught and forced to explain. This night was her best chance. She didn’t know when she would have another. 

She opened the secret door in the rocks. She ran down the cave stairs in darkness, then concentrated until the lanterns hanging from the ceiling flared to life. 

The cocoon lay on the stone plinth where she had left it three years ago. She drew her dagger and sliced open the layers of wrapstuff. She did not bother to look at Yosha’s mangled body. She closed her eyes, laid her hands on his cold flesh, and set to work. 

She started with the long bones of his body. She shaped his skeleton back together, sealing the myriad fractures he had sustained. She forced his shattered ribs back into shape, then set to work on his internal organs. She felt the heat pouring off her body and into his. A brilliant aura rose to surround them both. 

When she came to his head, the work grew harder. So much had been lost; so much had be regrown to exacting standards. But the dreamberry wine was doing its work, reviving the memory of their final locksending on the cliff. Melati could visualize the pattern of his thoughts, and thus the pattern of the organ that had shaped them. She delved deep into the memories, letting the sensations wash over her. Yosha’s fear, overruled by her strong will. Her own uncertainty washed away by his calming presence. Her disgust at her own weakness, and his gentle encouragement. 

His love…. 

Tears fell freely down her cheeks as she allowed herself to truly remember that moment, just before she had locked him out of her mind. The love he had offered her, and the deep, abiding calm of one who was at peace with himself, who wished nothing but for others to know the same serenity. She could have taken his offer then. She could have taken all he had to give her, and remade herself as the soul he had always imagined her to be. 

But she had been afraid – to know, to be known. To be loved, perhaps. And her fear had killed him. 

But now her love would bring him back. She reached out with her thoughts, calling to him. **Yosha, my soul’s brother, come back to me.** 

Slowly, inexorably, his head wound shrank and closed under her touch. His marrow began to produce fresh blood. His heart began to beat. Her lifeforce poured into him, reigniting the potential of his newly-healed body. She did not bother with the finer details – the expanses of scar tissue on his skin, the awkward protrusions of hastily reset bones. She kept all her attention on her call, pitched for Yosha’s soul alone – the soul she knew as intimately as if she had Recognized him. 

**No… this is not Recognition, the union of two souls,** she vowed. **There is only one soul here, Yosha, shared by two forms. You know this, as do I. Come back to me.** 

She could feel him, just out of reach…. 

**Why do you resist? Your shell is here! I’ve restored it! We can be as we were before – better! I understand now, Yosha! I’m ready. I wasn’t before, but I am now. We can be together as we were always meant to be!** 

He was there – hovering over his husk. She could almost touch him… 

Her spirit brushed against his, tried to lay hold. But just as she couldn’t stop the earth from pulling him down to his death, so she couldn’t quite draw his spirit back into life. 

**Yosha, please! I need you…** 

The whole room was vibrating with magic. Melati cried out, as her legs began to buckle with the effort. She screamed in frustration. “AAAH! Why? Why do you stay apart from yourself? And me! Why do you stay apart from me?!” 

She felt herself losing her grip on his spirit. She lunged for it, summoning one final burst of magic. The aura around them both erupted in a psychic blast, throwing her clear of his body. She hit the stone floor hard, striking her head. For a moment, she blacked out. When she came to, the residual glow was beginning to disperse around Yosha’s body. 

She rushed to his side. His head was still badly scarred – a mass of ropy skin covered the left side of his scalp, with a long seam cutting diagonally across his face. But she hardly noticed. She had restored his left eye, and it stared up at her sightlessly, a haunting shade of blueish-gray like the sky before a cloudburst. Gently she brushed his eyelid closed and waited for him to react to her touch. 

He did not move; and she continued her inspection. The joints of his right arm had healed crookedly, leaving his elbow and shoulder distorted by strange knots of bone. A reddish mark, almost like a burn, lay over his breastbone, where she had focused the intensity of her healing magic. She touched it, found it smooth as an infant’s skin. She felt for his heartbeat. 

“Yosha!” she called eagerly. “Yosha, wake up. Wake up! You’ve slept long enough.” 

But he didn’t stir. Though his heart started with a jolt of her magic, it faltered as soon as she withdrew her touch. “Yosha?” she urged. **Yosha, can’t you hear me? I know you’re in there – I felt you!** 

Was his spirit still stunned, after the violent transition? **Yosha?** she tried again. **Don’t be angry with me. I’m sorry if I hurt you. I… I didn’t know what else to do. Please answer me. Please wake up.** 

She had sent to sleeping elves before. She had touched unconscious minds and brought them around. Even inside the deepest death-sleep, the elfin mind continued to respond to sending, however faintly. But from Yosha she felt nothing. His husk seemed just as empty as before. 

His heart failed in its beat, and this time she did not try to restart it. She left the body on the stone table and staggered towards the door. She needed fresh air, she needed water. She needed to spur her exhausted mind to thought. There had to be another way, another answer. This could not be the end. 

The end… for the first time since Yosha’s fall, she allowed herself to truly contemplate the possibility of living without him. 

She fled from the cave as fast as her trembling legs would carry her. She opened the door rock and fell to her knees on the gravel outside, weeping miserably in the dawning light. 

I’ve failed you, soulbrother. Again. 

* * * 

Pain. Blinding pain, like the light of a million suns. Pain everywhere, stabbing in every pore of his skin. A hard surface, unyielding, agonizing as his frail body thrashed against its solidness…. 

His body… a core, a head, limbs – disparate parts all somehow united in thought and deed, all screaming out in agony. A cage for sensation, where before he had been free…. 

Light, searing against his open eyes, muted when he closed them…. 

Emptiness above him. He tried to rise to meet it, to escape the surface underneath his bruised body. He tried to fly…. 

He couldn’t. He fell. He jerked; he convulsed. His cage of flesh wouldn’t obey – didn’t know how. He fought against the rock, lashing out with heels and fists. He raged, and his throat gave his anger voice. 

He rose into the air, higher than ever, and for a moment he almost recaptured the feeling of freedom. Then something pulled him down again, and he fell… and fell… 

Fear. Terror of the purest form. He remembered falling! 

* * * 

Melati heard the wordless cry. Hardly daring to believe her ears, she raced back into her cave. 

Yosha was alive. 

He had fallen off the table, and lay flailing on the ground. His head and hands were bloodied from striking the table, and his mouth was open in a low animal moan. He was trying to rise to his knees, but he couldn’t make his limbs obey. He thrashed about like a newborn zwoot. 

She called his name as she ran towards him. He looked up. His silver-blue eyes were wild as a human’s. But he seemed to recognize her, if only as a fellow creature. He reached out his broken right arm, grunting excitedly. 

“Yes!” Melati exclaimed. She was laughing through her tears. “Yes, Yosha, it’s me! It’s Mel – you know me, don’t you?” 

She reached for his hand, and extended a gentle sending. **Oh, Yosha, you’re home, you’re home!** She touched his mind, eager for his reply…. 

And heard nothing. 

She stopped in midstride, hand still extended. The smile fell from her lips. 

He didn’t notice her sudden change. He seized her hand and pulled on it, hard enough to stagger her. He kicked his legs and held her arm fast until he could lever himself off the ground enough to manage a clumsy crawl. Melati tried to break free, but he was strong, strangely strong. As she tried to back away, she only pulled him with her. 

“No, no, wait – no,” she babbled helplessly. Her heel struck against stone and she fell back onto the stairs behind her. The broken elf kept coming, grunting and moaning. His scarred mouth was twisted in a grimace that might have been a smile. He pawed at her shoulders and face. 

**Yosha, Yosha, please!** she sent. She took his battered face in her hands and pressed her smooth forehead to his scarred one. She reached inside his mind as she done with the dying human, and found the same silence, the same absence of that part of the brain that linked one mind to another’s. 

“No…” she whispered, “Oh High Ones, no….” 

“Nuhhh!” the elf moaned back, as he struggled to hold her. “Nuuuhhhhh….” 

She tried to close her arms to him, but he pushed them apart. He groped and wriggled his way into an embrace. He sniffed her hair. He touched her mouth with clumsy fingers, then touched his own. His eyes seemed barely to have any glimmer of intelligence in them. He was as insensible as a wounded beast. 

And that was all he would ever be. 

It was all she could do not to be sick as she realized the enormity of her mistake. She had recaptured his spirit as she had planned, but she had trapped it in a broken mind. The exclusively elfin part of his brain had not survived: sending, the potential for magic – for Recognition… the very essence of his soul – was gone. Yosha was gone. 

In time, he might be able to speak. He might be able to reason. But he would never really be who he had been before. An elfin spirit could not express itself in a beast’s body. 

“Oh, Yosha…” she moaned in despair. 

The broken elf moaned in reply and nuzzled her neck, a wounded animal seeking comfort. Reluctantly, she let her arms fold over his back. She could feel the places in his spine where the bones had knit poorly. No wonder he could barely move. She sent out her magic to straighten his spine and free the impacted nerves. He let out a long sigh at her touch. She felt him relax in her arms. His moans turned to a contented whimpers. 

“Poor… poor beast,” she said, as she stroked his hair. It felt just as Yosha’s had – slick and cool like heavy silk. She probed lightly with her healer’s senses, and tasted the growing calm spreading through his bloodstream. 

This was the only way she could truly know him now, in the imperfect language of animal chemistry. For that was all he was: a witless animal. Could she condemn his spirit to existence inside such a cruel cage? She had been raised on tales of Timmain, the Fell One, who had spurned the gifts of her kind to live as a beast. But even deep in the wolfsong, she had kept something of an elf’s soul, Chani said. She had shaped her animal body to bear an elf’s mind. 

Would Timmain be able to help? No – Melati knew the Wolf’s answer to infirmity. Kill the body and free the spirit. Perhaps it was the only answer. 

“I just wanted you back, that’s all,” she insisted. “But not like this. I should have listened… I should have understood why you didn’t want to come back.” 

“Mmm…” the elf breathed into her hair. 

“It’s not right. I… I can’t keep you like this. I know you’d never want to live like this.” 

“Muh… muh m–muh….” 

She tightened her hand around the back of his head, running her fingertips over the shiny scar tissue. She could shatter his mind with a touch, as she had the human. It would be easy, relatively painless. She would set his spirit free, and destroy this broken husk, the evidence of her folly. It was the only kind thing to do. 

“Muhl,” the elf grunted. “Muhl.” 

Her hand stilled. “What?” She drew back enough to look him in the eyes. “What did you say?” 

He gestured with fingers curled into a claw. “Muhl,” he insisted. He snagged a lock of hair on his hand. “Muhl,” he repeated, more fluidly. Again he smiled, a crooked spread of lips and flash of teeth. He laughed, or perhaps it was merely a catch of breath. 

“Yes! My name is Mel. Do you remember? Do you remember me, Yosha? You – your name is Yosha. Can you say it? Yo-sha! Say it.” 

He bobbed his head in effort trying to keep up with her speech. “Muhl,” he repeated stubbornly. 

“Mel.” She took his hand and touched his knuckles to her breast. Then she folded his arm back so he touched his own scarred chest. “Yoh-sha,” she said slowly, deliberately. 

He opened his mouth and tried to form the word. “Y-yohh… ssss…” he grimaced as if rejecting the sound. He looked at her regretfully. Melati sighed and shook her head. 

“No, you’re not him,” she said. The Yosha she had known and loved was gone. Yet she could not kill this helpless newborn who wore her soul brother’s face. He might be nothing but a beast, but he was all she had left. And who was to say, if she killed him now, that the spirit she released would be the same as the one she had entrapped? Perhaps she had already destroyed Yosha’s soul – not when she let him fall on the cliff, but when she forced him back to life. 

If that was true, she hoped never to find out. She would keep his body alive forever, rather than face what remained of his spirit. As long as this creature drew breath, she could believe that Yosha’s soul was still inside somewhere, even crippled and silenced. 

“You’re just a beast,” she said. “A poor… lost beast. But I will care for you. I’ll find a way to keep you safe.” 

“Buh?” he asked. “Buhh-ss?” 

A good as name as any, she thought bleakly. “Beast,” she said again, more clearly. She repeated the miming gesture with his hand. “Mel. Beast.” 

“Buh-sst!” he grunted, more confidently. 

She nodded, swallowing her tears. She hugged him close, and he melted against her, relieved. “Muhl,” he lisped, as trusting as a child. 

“Pool was right, you know,” she murmured tonelessly. “What he said to me, the day you died. I am a lifetaker, whether I will it or not.” 

The elf – Beast – made no answer. 

“I know you always imagined we’d Recognize. So did I. I thought… you’d always be there,” she admitted. “When you weren’t there… I was lost. Now that you’re broken, so am I. And if I am death made flesh...” she traced the spiralling pattern of scar tissue on his scalp, healing the cuts and bruises he had dealt himself, “... so are you, now. We both wear the Enemy’s face.” She swallowed the tight ball of grief that threatened to seal her throat. She let it sink deeper and deeper into the pit of her stomach, until the tears dried on her lashes, and at last she felt a weary sort of peace. 

“This is our Recognition.”

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the full EQ Alternaverse at http://www.janesenese.com/swiftverse


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